The Age of Decline
The Age of Decline (February - June 2007) was the period of history following The Age of Unrest that saw temporary stability and the decline of TLDR's status, setting the stage for The Dark Age. The Age of Decline was marked by such events as The Birth of The Rep Alliance, The Siege of IFAP, and The Race Riots. The New TLDR Where there had been nothing but bitter resentment and ethical polarization just days before, the forum was now cooperating diligently to build their first official wiki, allowing them to fully record their TLDR experiences. The only conflict that arose was Zoo's wiki raid, in which he went on a rampage of deletions and spammings that resulted in his banishment from the wiki. The wiki craze lasted for several weeks, and from then on only a few people maintained the project. Although not everyone was completely happy, lack of inner conflict gave rise to a peaceful, united forum, reminiscent of ages past. Morek announced that he was retiring from "rebellion leader" to the dismay of some of his followers, citing the amount of energy he had expended and negative attention he had garnered during the TLDR Revolution, as well as his relative satisfaction with the current state of the TLDR. To everyone's surprise, Lazrik expanded the power base even further by granting Morek mod status a short time later. It was the first time since DoS that the TLDR had ever had a moderator. Some viewed this event as Morek's ultimate sellout. The Rise of IFAP Ever since the end of TLDR-TIAC War II, TIAC had been on the decline. Its regulars were now in the single digits, having either immigrated to the TLDR, gone to their own splinter forums, or disappeared. A new alliance between these splinter forums was consolidating, however, and from it was created an entirely new board: IFAP (Inter-Forum Alliance Project). SS Raistlin, likely realizing that his admin status would attract negative attention, opted to become a normal member, ruling from the shadows while Lurpy and Tarbarcy held power. Due to this strategy and to the TLDR's now-semi-friendly status with IFAP's predecessor, TIAC, the TLDR did not immediately meet this new board with hostility. TLDR's Upgrade In late April, the forum software was upgraded, resulting in the deletion of all threads which had been posted since The Founding of TheTLDR.org. Along with quicker loading times and less server errors, the upgrade gave users access to new features including an improved rep system which allowed members to leave comments in each others forum profiles and give them positive or negative 'rep' points. Lazrik had already decided that he wanted to take a lesser role in moderation and instead focus on the operation of the forum and site, and Morek's non-interference philosophy resulted in Clamz's additional promotion to moderator. Following this, Cream was given power over the porn forum and Pintsized was made moderator of the gaming forum. Immediately following the upgrade, a steady stream of new members from the OT and other forums began to flood the TLDR, resulting in widespread debate. Scyle, the most outspoken anti-immigration advocate, claimed to believe that new members were ruining the TLDR, while immigration proponents maintained that continued registration was what kept the forum alive and fresh. A new female member named moneta was commonly the target of anti-immigration hostility. The Birth of The Rep Alliance While many found the new rep system fun, not everyone was satisfied with it, including Clamz. He felt that the rep system was pointless and was turning TLDR into a popularity contest. Using his newfound authority, he created the Rep Alliance, a group of members that were opposed to the rep system and would continue to give each other rep on a daily basis until the administration realized how exclusionary and damaging the rep system was. Lazrik, realizing the conflict that it was creating, decided to remove the feature on that very same night, causing a firestorm of resentment. Reveling in his victory, Clamz was the brunt of many TLDRers' hostility, frustrated at how easily Lazrik had given in. Clamz, who thus far had been the TLDR's "nice" guy, was causing some to wonder if he had been corrupted by his power. Clamz maintained that he was still the same person, except he now had to make difficult decisions. The destruction of the rep system remained a continuing source of debate and anger, easily the most controversial feature TLDR ever had. The Siege of IFAP Hostility toward IFAP had been building up, and TLDRers were demanding a raid. A war council met at DoS to plan the attack, first calling for the deletion of all IFAP raid threads on TLDR since some posters' loyalties lay with IFAP. However, the only moderator on at the time, Clamz, refused to cooperate or to have anything to do with the raid. While the planning was going on at DoS, a new member named Jazzhands who was known for his nonsensical Cream-like spam was being unmasked by the TLDR. Shockingly, he turned out to be Lurpy himself, an IFAP admin, and he had been watching TLDR's raid progress from the beginning. By the time Lazrik was contacted, the information was leaked that TLDR was planning a raid. Creating accounts at IFAP was now all but impossible. Realizing that a raid any time in the near future was an impossibility, the DoS war council decided to keep trying to get accounts through so they could possibly raid in the distant future. They concluded that if the admins became so paranoid that they never validated another account again, IFAP would eventually die anyway and TLDR would still be victorious. While this satisfied the raiders at DoS for the time being, the lack of an organized attack still took its toll on TLDR morale. Lazrik's Cutbacks Weeks after the incident, many TLDRers were still angry about the loss of the rep system, but when Lazrik started to receive high resource-usage reports from his host, he was forced to dramatically cut back on even more forum features to compensate and avoid having the site shut down. Among the cutbacks were the search engine and the "members reading topic" box. TLDR was now a stripped-down version of its former self. Only after Lazrik moved the site back to its old server was he able to turn the cutback features back on, but this action destroyed the wiki, which could not run on the older versions of MySQL and PHP. Many resented Lazrik for destroying their hours of work. The Race Riots Along with the influx of new members came several people of African descent, including CLester and Shankly. Although there had always been racial tension on TLDR, mostly centered around LJ, it reached its climax when Scyle unleashed his torrent of racist trolls. After weeks of constant bickering, Scyle apparently grew tired of the TLDR and went to troll other OT Spinoff forums, returning the TLDR to relative peace. He later returned, but did not troll to the same extent as before. Navigation <<-The Age of Unrest------Index------The Dark Age->> Category:TLDR History Category:History